The Space Spoon novel Chapter 42

A well of pain exploded across Tejeda’s chest as he fell onto the sand. He got to the other side. A familiar crimson sun hung high above his head, bringing back lost, unwanted memories. The air was so hot that it was barely breathable.

Dunes extended as far as the eye could reach. Blazing heat blanketed a desolate wilderness. He stood up and brushed the fine sand off his clothing. It adhered to the tips of his fingers and hair strands as he wiped his face, his tearful eyes piercing through to the horizon. Everything felt incredibly familiar. This was a replica of his homeworld.

The humming of an engine disrupted the silence. Finally, something Tejeda wasn’t familiar with appeared. He crawled on all fours to the top of a dune. Watching in the distance, with a hand above his eyes to protect his sight, his heart sank. This was a case of deja vu. Now he was back in that moment, a twisted, pain-wracked form, writhing and gibbering like a shaken child with a fever of a thousand degrees.

A ship gently dropped, remaining high enough to avoid the dwellings and low-lying hills. It cruised through the powdery sand stretch. Purple octopuses strewn across the light brown ground moved safely away as the ship approached. It landed on the planet's surface under a scorching red sun.

Tejeda squinted, trying to see the new arrival through the glare of the sun, drifting through the haze and a blanket of dust. He knew what was about to happen. He had lived it. The wind blew his hair into his eyes and pulled the sand from the dune around him.

A woman appeared next to him at the top of the dune. They sat and waited, watching. Every muscle in their bodies tensed, ready to respond in an instant if the other attacked.

The Nubilae hurried inside the ship, no better than rodents. But they had a worthy goal. To save themselves as a species. Nubilonia couldn’t provide the resources needed for their kind to evolve and thrive.

They said they would find a new home for the Nubilae. But it was a lie. All of it was a lie. The Nubilae just had traded one curse for another. Tejeda had remained alone in the empty, dark universe, the only one with a scrap of sanity left intact. Alone, forgotten, the madman of a forsaken planet.

“Don’t board that ship!” Tejeda yelled till his voice became gruff and scraped against the back of his throat. It was like sharp spikes scraped down his windpipe and dug into his larynx. His eyes bulged as his face jerked, and everything halted, frozen in time.

When Tejeda remained breathless, the spell faded, and he recovered his composure. "I don't understand why I should be here.” Nonetheless, he kept a watchful eye on everything, rewatching the event as if summoned by a siren's song. He had reached the pinnacle of his masochism at this point.

Tejeda pondered what would have happened if the Nubilae had not boarded that ship. If they had stayed on Nubilonia and were never subjected to those experiments. He struggled with these thoughts.